We have Halloween in just a few weeks, then a few short weeks later it will be Thanksgiving, followed closely by the madness of the Christmas shopping season, then Christmas itself, New Year's ... and then it will be 2010.

Ever get that feeling that if you blink, you'll miss something important?

While these next few months will be busy, we've got to slow down enough to take stock of our lives. Not just what we need or want, but also to acknowledge what we've already got.

Steve McNair, former NFL quarterback, was shot and killed on July 4, allegedly by a woman who was his girlfriend. While men kill their intimate partners more often than women do, women are also capable of this kind of violence.

Many years ago, a couple came to me for counseling, only reluctantly revealing that she had once shot him during an argument. He survived and they were still together. Her temper, however, was still painfully obvious.

OK, newspaper folks. It's time to pick ourselves off the ground and fight back. There is plenty of time left on the clock, and our fans - more than 100 million loyal readers - are pulling for us to win. So here's how we rally.

First and foremost, we have to ignore those self-proclaimed pundits and cynics who believe that newspapers are dead. They are dead wrong.

Sure, newspaper companies face serious challenges. But we also have serious opportunities to re-engineer ourselves as quality content creators for local print and online audiences that advertisers still desire.

On Saturday, Sept. 12, my wife and I traveled to Lexington for the Scarefest Horror & Paranormal Convention. It was the first horror film convention for both of us, and we had no idea what to expect.

I've been a fan of horror films and books for most of my life but have never had the opportunity to go to a convention. Until recently, there hadn't been a convention in Kentucky, and I'm not a big enough horror nerd to travel out of state.

While many are focused on fighting the government takeover of the health care system, a lesser-known bill passed the U.S. House of Representatives last week that paved the way for a government takeover of the student loan industry.

Recent polls have shown that Americans feel the government is trying to do too many things that should be left to businesses and individuals.

Do you remember the Jolly Green Giant? What about a card catalog? Have you ever "shaken down" a thermometer? Remember when we had to watch the evening news to find out what had happened in the world?

I do. And I have.

But not so for most of this year's college freshmen.

Each August for the past decade, Wisconsin's Beloit College has released what it has termed a "Mindset List." The list is the creation of Beloit's Keefer Professor of the Humanities Tom McBride and Emeritus Public Affairs Director Ron Nief.

I was not intending to write anything about the Steve Nunn situation because it has already received so much media attention, but then I read something that changed my mind.

The Lexington Herald-Leader in a page one story in its Sept. 13 edition included a quote from Nunn's attorney in which she said that the issuance of a protective order to Nunn's girlfriend in February of this year "caused all the problems."